Number 777
by gurshu12
Summary: After a counterfeit candy factory begins to affect the entire city, one boy stands up to take on the tyrant to save kids everywhere.


The day was finally coming to its end as the sun began to hover harmoniously over the horizon, casting out its final rays of light showering the city in a relaxing, yet eerie aura. The streets were empty, and a deathly silence was brought down with only the sounds of the wind and the rustle of dead leaves dancing down the sidewalk. It was during this time that serious contraband was brought out from the slums and into commonplace, where shady deals were sure to follow. The streetlights began to flicker on one by one as the sun, ever so slowly, sank into the distant earth. It was time for the rats to come out, for the city's underground to surface, but most of all, it was time for another night without adult supervision. Every alley, street, and back roads were filled with dealers selling off their less potent sugar-free candies to the hardcore addicts, those who live just to get a slight buzz from a small morsel. It's been a pathetic sight ever since the local candy store ran out of business, leaving behind the addicts who will pay anything for a small sample of anything sweet. It was time for a change, and nobody wanted to step up...

...Except one boy.

The boy stepped into the streetlight from a nearby alleyway surveying the area, tying his grey plaid flannel around his waist. He looked like your average kid, short-jutted red hair, blue eyes, olive green t-shirt, blue jeans, black sneakers, not something you would really notice out of the ordinary. Although with the current crowd he was surrounded with, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Scrubby kids passed by every now and then, shooting cautious glares as they realized he wasn't the usual candy dealer that was around. The boy sighed, looked at the glistening sunset, and leaned on the lamppost. About ten minutes pass when suddenly the boy hears a voice from nowhere.

"Sorry I'm late..." It came from the alleyway. The boy turned and looked towards the shadows. A smaller, pudgy boy in a black suit stepped forward and tipped his small rimmed felt hat down, nodding towards the boy. "The name's Y," he said with a sly New Yorker accent. The boy nodded, "is your boss ready?"

"Yeah...but first things first," Y said, "What's your name?"

"Sven."

"Sven huh," Y asked, stroking his chin, "sounds familiar."

"I don't think I have a reputation of any kind," Sven said. Y eyed him for a moment and shrugged. "Whateva', let's get out of here."

Y led Sven through a number of streets and alleyways, littered with used candy wrappers and scavengers begging for any kind of sweet. The area was becoming more and more pathetic with each passing night as kids in the neighborhood slowly became the night life as street rats. At last, passing one final street, Y beckoned Sven towards a gigantic iron gate, enclosed within thick brick walls rising about twenty feet into the air. Y tapped on the rusted iron door and it slowly creaked open, only to fiercely slam shut as the two boys passed through it. What Sven saw didn't surprise him as he examined the inside the old walls. At the end of the street there stood a gigantic factory. Old glass windows dotted the walls, reaching up about eight floors with three pillars shooting upwards, expelling exhaust into the night sky. On either side of the road were many old bunkers, many of them filled with assembly lines of ragged looking kids, but it was too far away for Sven to see anything important. "Nice union you have under you," Sven muttered.

"Oh," Y said with a grunt, "them. They're all kids who took the boss too lightly and got too far into debt. Needless to say, they all had what was coming to them."

"What about the Kids Next Door?" Sven asked.

"What about them?"

"Haven't they tried to bust down this facility?"

"Several times," Y chuckled, "but they no longer have authorization to invade our premises." A couple of haggard looking kids bowed their heads as they heard him walking by.

"How did you manage that?" Sven asked.

"Questions will be answered by the boss, I can't say anything. It's a need-to-know basis, kid."

Y and Sven walked through the garage doors and into the factory's facility. Distant work noises echoed through the metal walls, as well as many children's voices. "This way," Y said, pointing towards a set of stairs to their right. As they began climbing the stairs Y looked down at Sven. "Tell me...have you had any connections with the Kids Next Door before?"

"No," Sven said with a stern expression, "I've never been involved with them. I just heard rumors, like every other kid in the neighborhood."

"I see..." Y said, continuing up the stairs.

Finally the two reached a dead end, a door and two pairs of windows on either side before them. "The boss is ready," Y said, tipping his felt hat once more as he stepped behind Sven. Sven began to approach the door when Y muttered to him. "Hey kid." Sven looked back at him. "Don't try anything funny," Y said with a frown. Sven looked ahead and stepped in.

"Ah...welcome young client..." Sven heard as he closed the door behind him. The room was small with a complete set of old office assets. It was gloomy, the lights were dimmed and the shutters on the windows where half tilted. Muffled work noises came from all around the old, cracked walls as Sven stepped forward. There, at the end of the office covered in papers and folders, as desk lay out before him, the office chair on the other side was turned the other direction hiding the voice that came from behind it. "Please," the voice said again "take a seat."

Sven sat down on an empty chair in front of the desk. The office chair turned and revealed the holder of the voice. It was a man, a chubby man with pepper hair in business attire. He looked down at Sven and grinned, putting his elbows on the table and his hands beneath his chin. "You are...?"  
"Sven," the boy said.

"Right," the boss said to himself, reaching down at some papers on the desk "What business must we attend to, Mr. Sven?"

"I've brought papers to close a deal on the shipment of sugar cane from across seas," Sven said, reaching in his pocket and retrieving a folded paper. He slid it across the desk and presented it to the boss. "I believe everything is in order."

"Quite," the boss said, examining the papers. "You know you are two weeks behind schedule."

"Acquiring goods and delivering them across the borders isn't exactly the easiest of jobs," Sven said, "and some road bumps were met."

"Do you have the goods with you?"

"Six trucks are waiting down the warehouse across the street, when you sign the papers they're as good as yours."

"Very well then," the boss said taking out a pen from his chest pocket. He scribbled his signature on the paper and handed it to the boy. "The shipment warehouse is down the stairs and to the right past the main assembly lines. I'm positive there will be no further problems?"

"None at all," Sven assured.

Inside the shipment warehouse Sven found himself in a labyrinth of boxes and crates, piling all the way up to the thirty foot ceiling. The warehouse doors opened one by one allowing each truck to have their own passage in. After backing in throughout the warehouse the trucks began unloading their crates. One of the kids lowering the crates looked up at Sven, a look of concern on his face. Sven simply nodded, receiving a nod from the other kids unloading the crates. Eventually, Sven's shipments of the goods were delivered deliberately throughout the warehouse as the trucks made their exit. As the guards began lowering the warehouse screen doors Sven made himself scarce, escaping through the narrow passageways of crates and boxes.

"Hold it!" Sven heard as he walked down the hallway. He turned and saw a teen crony, armed with gumball pistol, run up to him. "Where do you think your going? Aren't you the manager of the new shipment?"

"No," Sven said, "I'm the technician. I was hired yesterday to get rid of that electric bug problem in the north quarter."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, can you prove it?"

"Sure," Sven muttered as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper, "is that all? I'm on a really tight schedule." The teen examined it for a moment, shrugged, and handed it back. "If it's the electric problem, you're going to want to head to the generator's computer, down that hall," he said pointing down a long stretched hallway, "and the second door on your right."

"Thanks," Sven said. The teen watched as Sven walked down the far hallway, making sure he followed the right directions. After losing sight of the boy, the guard made his way to a nearby soda machine. He reached towards his pocket, but noticed something different. "Hey..." he muttered, "where'd my gun go?"

Sven entered the giant room, containing the ear throbbing generator that hummed furiously. For the main electrical system it was quite dark, Sven noticed, as he examined the entire room. On the other side of the room behind a glass wall were the controls, six monitors with a worker on each of them. Sven sneaked as close as he could to the door that led in there, hiding under the catwalk above to avert from any other spectator's eyes. Sven had to flush them out of there, but how? While he was pondering this, his eyes darted around the walls looking for any kind of answer. Sven smiled, as he saw the answer right next to him all along.

"Output is proceeding three percent per hour," one of the workers said.

"We need a higher output," another worker perked up, "you heard what the boss said."

Suddenly all the workers jumped as the main alarm system jumped into action and let out a screeching shout:  
"Fire in Quadrant A! Fire in Quadrant A! Proceed to all nearby exits as indicated."

The workers fled from the room as the message repeated over and over, all whining and scared half to death.

"I'm too young to die!"

"What about our work??"

"Forget our work! I'm out of here!"

Sven let out a snigger as everyone clambered out of the generator's room. As he entered the control room the screeching noises stopped, leaving behind the flickering red lights outside. The computers remained on, flickering different lights and beeps with a small warning window flashing on every monitor. Sven walked to one of the towers and put in a floppy disk from his pocket. It wasn't too long before the light problem was fixed. Or, should we say, got worse.

The entire blackout of the factory shut down everything, followed by a mass of bodies shoving themselves out of the gates or climbing out of the walls. Sven rushed through the dark halls, pushing past all the people running towards any exit they could find. Eventually, Sven found himself back into the main warehouse assembly lines. The area gave off an eerie silence, his footsteps echoing throughout the silent walls. It was suddenly broken though, as a loud shout came from the top of the office stairs. "I knew you were behind this!" It was the boss's voice. "What do you think you're going to do? Shut down my factory?!"

"You're going down old man, along with all your counterfeit sweets and dirty money!" Sven shouted towards the darkness.

"I don't think so...young Kids Next Door operative...do you realize how many violations you're creating by breaking our treaty??"

"I'm not an operative of the Kids Next Door!" Sven shouted, "I just hate old bags who think they can rule kids' lives."

"Kids' lives were meant to be under adult rule!" the boss yelled from no particular direction. Sven turned his head all around, trying to follow where his voice was coming from. "Soon all the kids in this city will be working for me! I'll own all the candy shops in this county, then the country, and later...the world!" He let out a maniacal laugh as Sven drew out the pistol he stole from the guard. "Oh, want to fight, _boy_?" the boss sneered, "It's going to take a lot to bring this place down, and I don't think you got the guts."

Suddenly a pair of hands locked around Sven's neck and raised him in the air. Sven dropped his pistol and clanged his fingers around the hands, trying with all his strength to pry them loose. He was running out of breath and fast. Sven pulled up his arm in a last effort, and shot his elbow back hoping to hit something. Behind him the boss let out a gasp and his grip loosened, lowering Sven to the ground. Sven grabbed the pair of wrists around his neck using them to jump up and flip backwards, kicking the boss square in the face. The boss let out a painful yelp and let go. Sven landed on the ground, looking back as the boss crashed clumsily into an assembly belt. The boss coughed, and looked up. "You're not getting out of here alive, kid!" He nodded towards the office, where Sven noticed Y in the window. Y grinned, and pushed a nearby button, closing the warehouse doors. Now was the chance.

Sven dashed forward, running as fast as he could to the closing doors. His breath drew short, sweat beaded on his face with every step he took. It seemed hopeless; the doors were now only two feet from the ground. It was now or never. In a desperate move, Sven kicked towards the ground and slid across the concrete floor. The door, barely missing his nose, closed with a thud, leaving the two jaw opened counterfeiters inside. The road was empty, everyone was gone and the bunkers were clear. Inside Sven could hear the distant muffled voice of the boss. "HURRY UP AN OPEN THE GATE! I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH RESERVE POWER WE HAVE, JUST DO IT!"

Sven stepped away from the factory, ignoring the repeating banging on the doors and shouts from the angry boss. Reaching in his flannel pocket, Sven pulled out what looked like a detonator made out of plain household items. Thus, a simple click of a red button sent the entire monopoly empire of counterfeit candies in an explosion that shook the entire city.

"That's amazing!" a young kid gasped while writing down furiously on a notepad. "You brought the entire industry down without any outside help??"

"Well," Sven began as he leaned in his cushioned chair, "I did hire some kids to bring in the shipments, but yes. I'm sure every kid in my position would have felt it to be their duty to bring down that evil place."

"I don't understand how you got in so easily," the young reporter pondered.

"I was doing three weeks of research on the facility, blueprints, the hired work, the shipments coming in that month, everything. I was able to hijack that sugar cane shipment before it reached the city limits. It took awhile to get everything in order, which I was afraid of, but the boss didn't seem to mind."

"What happened afterwards?" said the reporter, still writing as furious as before.

"A Kids Next Door team was sent in to investigate. Both Y and the boss survived that explosion as planned, and both were put under arrest, I'm not sure where they are now though. I, at the time, fled from the scene and returned home. I didn't want any ties to it what-so-ever, but word got around of how I was involved and before you know it, I was invited up to the Moon Base for some exams...later dubbed as operative number 777."

"Why did you request not to be put on a team?"

Sven smiled. "I felt too tied down if I decided to do that. I'll go where I'm needed, wherever that may be."

"What about now?" the reporter asked, "what's your current mission?"

"For now..." Sven said, looking out a nearby window, "as you know, we're all put on lockdown. There's a traitor among us sending out vital information to you-know-who, and I'm not allowed anywhere. Only one team has been assigned to anything, and even I don't know where they're headed... As for me, though, I'm being sent to the Moon Base to do some techie' work."

"Well...that should do for that report," the reporter said nodding, putting away the notepad. He shook Sven's hand and nodded again. "Thanks for everything Numbuh 777."

"Anytime," Numbuh 777 said with a smile.

* * *

Woo! The debut of Number 777. Neato, eh? To clear things up, the last paragraph ties in with Kawaii Kitty's story: "Operation: NOTFOUND". I can't pull up a link at the moment, as the edit screen won't save it for some reason oO;. Just head up to search and look for it.

It's a very excellent story that ironically debuts her own character as well. And hey, if you don't review it then you'll make me cry. As well as Santa. Thanks for reading; I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it!


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